David Remnick recalled that the man who directed The Washington Post’s reporting on Watergate and the Pentagon Papers “wasn’t Noam Chomsky. He was not an outsider or a leftist.” But “he built an institution. ... He gave it its ambition.”

Had Bill Clinton heeded the glaring signs of the sea change ushered in by that now-infamous scene from a boat in Bimini called the Monkey Business in the spring of 1987, he could have spared himself, not to mention the rest of the country, a big hassle during his presidency.

Let’s state this very simply, so everybody will understand. The notion that Barack Obama is “Nixonian”—or that his administration’s recent troubles bear any resemblance to “Watergate”—is the biggest media lie since the phony “Whitewater scandal” crested during the Clinton presidency.

Less than four months after Barack Obama’s inauguration, the right-wing propaganda machine is already promoting the only imaginable conclusion to a Democratic administration that dares to achieve a second term: impeachment.

Richard Nixon, who would have turned 100 on Wednesday, endures as the commanding figure of American political life since the end of World War II. His style, achievements and failures persist nearly two decades after his death.

The judge’s death Wednesday brings to mind his singular moment: the Senate’s rejection of his Supreme Court nomination in 1987. The criticism and assault against him marked a sea change in the process of both nominations and confirmations.

A look at the day’s political happenings, including more bad news for Mitt Romney, Claire McCaskill’s response to Todd Akin’s sexist remarks and further Republican charges about President Obama’s religion.

In awarding him the organization’s top prize for online writers, the judges offered high praise for Hedges, calling him “Champion of the 99%—mortal enemy of the 1%. This former war correspondent turns out weekly columns packed with insightful and biting opinion.”

Spending in the 2012 presidential election is expected to top $11 billion—more than twice the 2008 total. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling has taken American electoral politics back six decades, to before a time when corporations, trade groups and unions were banned from spending unlimited money on political campaigns.

A look at the day’s political happenings, including the release of Deep Throat’s FBI file, a political convention fit for the Koch brothers and a Michigan state representative’s response to being blocked from speaking because of her “vagina” remark.

After nearly 35 years, the American public finally gets to hear Richard Nixon’s claims about some of his administration’s shadier practices, Watergate figuring most notoriously among them, after the National Archives’ release Thursday of transcripts of his grand jury testimony. ... (more)

What is the most powerful political operation in the country in this 21st century? It’s the United States Supreme Court. The men and women in black are on their way to deciding their second national election in just the first decade of the century.

Dumpster diving—or the diminutive version, dustbin diving—is never a savory task, but a group of enterprising students from California State University, Stanislaus, had a tip-off before they dug around in the campus trash to find documents detailing ... (continued)

Alexander Haig was chief of staff to Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal, secretary of state under Ronald Reagan, NATO’s supreme military commander and a longtime Republican hawk. He died Saturday in Baltimore at 85 from complications from an infection.

President Richard Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974, in the wake of the Watergate scandal and the revelations of his “abuses of power” and obstruction of justice. For his involvement in criminal activities, Nixon earned his unique epitaph: an unindicted co-conspirator.

On Tuesday, the National Archives made public more than 150 hours of tape and tens of thousands of pages of previously unreleased documents from the Nixon administration. Some of the gems include new details into Watergate and Vietnam as well as three newly declassified pages on Israel’s secret plans to build a nuclear weapon.

Back in 1972 the FBI’s acting director gave a New York Times reporter the impression that the president was personally involved in Watergate, but the tip died a quick and historic death in the Times’ Washington Bureau, according to the reporter and editor involved. One went on to law school, the other took a long vacation and no one bothered to follow up.

Congress’ work has often offered us transparency and has usually led to useful, progressive legislation. And now comes Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank’s choreographed extravaganza in the House of Representatives, supported by an echoing committee, with sound bites worthy of a night in the Borscht Belt.

Two Truthdig contributors are undersiege by an “independent historian” and The New York Times. If that sounds preposterous, just wait until you see what made it onto the front page. Last Sunday, the paper of record cited an unpublished article contending that historian Stanley Kutler deliberately altered transcripts of Nixon’s secret tapes in order to protect John Dean.

“Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace braved the “liberal wind,” according to his colleague James P. Pinkerton, by defending George W. Bush from a gaggle of lefties eager to compare Bush to Richard Nixon at a Washington, D.C., screening of Ron Howard’s film “Frost/Nixon.”

When Sen. John McCain finally appeared on “Late Night” on Thursday, David Letterman didn’t let him forget that he had stood Letterman up last month. Later, McCain joked, “I haven’t had so much fun since my last interrogation.”

Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer interviews John Dean about “Pure Goldwater,” his new collaboration with the late senator’s son. The book is a reminder that American conservatism has drifted far from its original heading.

Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer interviews John Dean about “Pure Goldwater,” his new collaboration with the late senator’s son. The book is a reminder that American conservatism has drifted far from its original heading.

The GOP was already bracing for a tough political year, but losses in three special elections prompted Rep. Tom Davis to send a panicked note to Republican leaders: “The political atmosphere facing House Republicans this November is the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than the fall of 2006 when we lost thirty seats.”

One-time presidential candidate and former Sen. George McGovern penned a bombshell of an Op-Ed piece in Sunday’s Washington Post, asserting that the case for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney “is far stronger than was the case against Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew after the 1972 election.”

According the esteemed Gallup Poll, it’s not just that Americans largely disapprove of George W. Bush, but that half strongly disapprove. In fact, Bush has more intense disapproval than Nixon had during Watergate.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter on Watergate has just published “A Woman in Charge,” a biography of Hillary Clinton, for which he interviewed almost 100 of her friends and enemies. Carl Bernstein spoke recently with Truthdig’s Jon Wiener about the first former first lady to make a bid for the presidency.

Who earns the title of Worst President Ever: Nixon or Bush? While Bill Boyarsky concedes that the question may be moot in some senses, he still takes the two to task in his rundown of the many offenses they committed during their respective (imperialist) presidencies.

If Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wasn’t in enough trouble already, he now has to deal with the fallout from his disgraceful behavior in John Ashcroft’s hospital room in March of 2004, when Gonzales attempted to strong-arm Ashcroft into reauthorizing the domestic surveillance program implemented by the White House after 9/11—as Ashcroft lay ailing on his sickbed.

It is time to stop referring to the “fired U.S attorneys scandal” by that misnomer, and call it what it is: a White House-coordinated effort to use the vast powers of the Justice Department to swing elections to Republicans.